WI Major Naval Battle in the North Atlantic

It's not the major battle in the North Atlantic that the OP asked for, but...

In the No Aircraft Carriers and More Battleships for Germany threads that I never finished 12 additional Type 24 torpedo boats were built in the 1930s instead of the 10 F-boats. One of the reasons for that was that the Germans did not have enough destroyers to screen the capital ships and cruisers.

For example that contributed to Lutzow being torpedoed in April 1940 after returning from Oslo.

If the Oslo Group had been provided with an adequate destroyer screen and Lutzow had not been torpedoed my guess is that she would have accompanied Scheer on her October 1940 to April 1941 sortie. Therefore when HX84 was encountered Scheer would deal with the Jervis Bay and Lutzow would attack the convoy. It's not a major naval battle, but the Germans are likely to sink three or four times more of the convoy's ships than OTL.

A small destroyer screen also helped a British submarine sink the Karlsruhe on her return from Norway. She was the most seaworthy and battle worthy of the German light cruisers because she was the only one that had had her hull rebuilt. If a thicker destroyer screen had prevented her from being torpedoed it's possible that she would have been sent on an Atlantic sortie in 1940-41 and very likely that she would have been sent to Norway in 1942.

Another possibility is that Karlsruhe took part in Operation Berlin. She might not have been detached like Hipper and the destroyers were because AFAIK she had a longer range. The extra firepower she provided might have stopped Acasta torpedoing the Scharnhorst. That would have butterflied away the torpedoing of her sister in the operation to mounted to cover the damaged Scharnhorst's return to Germany.

That might in turn mean an earlier Operation Berlin with The Twins being accompanied by Karlsruhe and possibly Hipper depending upon when they were ready. For example if they were ready to go out with Hipper at the end of November 1940 and they still meet the troop convoy we might have a major battle there.


I do not see what that has to do with the topic. Destroyers were not seen in the kriegsmarine as escorts for atlantic missions of larger ships, but rather larger coastal vessels mainly, due to short endurance and seaworthynessproblems. So forget the destroyers in this battle, as they were useless in the mind of the Kriegsmarine for high sea missions. That means: NO DESTROYERS!

German larger warships were well designed to operate on their own, or with their fellow consorts. Destroyers would have rendered them inoperable, being confined to coastal missions only. Why build large ships in the first place then?
 
I'd like to ask how the following scenario would play out.

First assumption - The Bismarck does not sortie in 1940. She stays in port to wait the completion of her sister ship Tirpitz.

Second assumption - The Tirpitz is completed, the raid on St. Nazaire to destroy the drydock there she is to use fails as do numerous attempts to sink her.

In May, 1942 the Bismarck, the Tirpitz, the Scharnhorst, the Gniesenau, and the Admiral Hipper, along with a covering force of light cruisers and submarines enters the North Atlantic to wreck havoc in the Allied shipping lanes. Hitler has decided to cripple the British war effort in one full swoop.

How successful is this and do we get a grand naval battle?

We played a 1941 version of this scenario in Avalon Hill's Bismarck back in the day. Still have that game. Short answer is that the British have a really, really hard time trying to protect dozens of convoys in the Atlantic with a handful of fast battleships. It's bloody well nigh impossible. Even the historical tactic of one slow battleship per convoy to deter the 'Twins' doesn't work because Bis and Tiz can take it out.

Fuel is the first consideration. Barbarossa basically laid up the fleets for deep range Atlantic operations. The second is more curious - the carriers. The British could form hunter teams with their carriers to go for the lucky torpedo hit. But, there is also the US carriers and PBY units in the Atlantic, which would be quite dangerous to the Germans if joining the hunt.
 
We played a 1941 version of this scenario in Avalon Hill's Bismarck back in the day. Still have that game. Short answer is that the British have a really, really hard time trying to protect dozens of convoys in the Atlantic with a handful of fast battleships. It's bloody well nigh impossible. Even the historical tactic of one slow battleship per convoy to deter the 'Twins' doesn't work because Bis and Tiz can take it out.

Fuel is the first consideration. Barbarossa basically laid up the fleets for deep range Atlantic operations. The second is more curious - the carriers. The British could form hunter teams with their carriers to go for the lucky torpedo hit. But, there is also the US carriers and PBY units in the Atlantic, which would be quite dangerous to the Germans if joining the hunt.

1941, at least the second half, had the changes turned already in favour of the British, mostly due to the appearance of more reliable searchradar and the more effective way to hunt down the support and replenishment sources of the SKL, just as historically during the Bismarck affair. Cracking the German Naval coding was one of the primary reasons the OTL Replenishment units were effectively hunted down, meaning after the middle of 1941, any German large surface ship, or group of ships, would have had a hard time finding replenishment at sea, thus making such sorties highly risky. Since ships need replennishment every now and then, especially the fuelthirsty German High presure steamboilers, such an operation would be killed in its tracks before even sailing out of port. Even with no direct confrontation between large surfaceships, the British would have made the German surfacefleet impotent, due to lack of support at sea, far away in enemy controled waters.

So the best option was the known FLEET IN BEING, in other words maintaining it as a potential powerful force, binding Allied military resources in the North Atlantic, affecting war in other parts of the world as a result.
 
A major Kriegsmarine sortie in to the Atlantic could certainly trash a convoy or two, and disrupt convoy routing for a time. However a sortie in force like described here will result in in the Germans being run to ground and sunk/crippled eliminating the fleet in being threat. In 1942 this exchange works heavily in the favor of the British. Splitting up and individual raiding (like Graf Spee) is not practical at this point. As "unsatisfying" as it might have been for the German Navy, a fleet in being with occasional forays against Russian convoys was the most effective use of the large ships.
 
In this scenario, have the British hunted down the German replenishment ships? There was no historical sortie by Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, which was when some of those ships were hunted down. Also, where are S&G located in this scenario, France or Germany?

With no Bismarck sortie, Hood is probably still alive. This is 1942, might Hood be hand for a refit in this scenario?
 

Geon

Donor
In this scenario, have the British hunted down the German replenishment ships? There was no historical sortie by Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, which was when some of those ships were hunted down. Also, where are S&G located in this scenario, France or Germany?

With no Bismarck sortie, Hood is probably still alive. This is 1942, might Hood be hand for a refit in this scenario?

Assume for the sake of the scenario that at least some of the replenishment ships have survived, and yes the Hood is not destroyed in the Battle of the Denmark Sea and so is available here.
 
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